


Inches and Falling

by evil_bunny_king



Series: Fic Exchanges <3 [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Late Night Conversations, Painting, Portraiture, early-relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:03:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6925117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Where the inquisition wants a portrait done of her, but she dislikes all of the ones done so far so she asks Solas to paint her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inches and Falling

When Solas returns to the rotunda, a newly acquired book in hand, Ellana stands before the fresco of the fall of Haven.

“Inquisitor,” he greets her, stepping more fully into the room. She doesn’t stir as he approaches, her hands tucked together as she considers the wall, and so he sets aside the book on a side table and joins her. The expanse of his fresco stretches up before them. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

It’s a moment before she responds.

“Nothing in particular.” Her gaze appears to be caught by the central figure - the magister, the wraith in flame-licked frame. “You’ve added more to this, since I last had a chance to see it.”

He offers her a smile, tipping his head back to consider the piece as well. The burning chantry, the spectral figure. The dragon scales, coming to an abrupt end at the balcony, the plaster stopping just shy of the wooden supports. Borderless, unconstrained. He cannot delineate the story unfolding here.

“So I have.”

His words are quiet. It is easy to fall into companionable silence with her. As the Inquisition had first established itself in the ruins of the keep, fitting into the disused halls and dusty corners, he’d often found himself here: sharing a conversation, a glass of wine, debating topics from the nuance of some theoretical tome to the latest missives from Orlais.

From the corner of his eye, he sees her lips purse, that slight wrinkle cross her brow as she debates whether or not to ask the question on her mind.

He turns to her, clasping his hands behind his back. “Speak.”

She glances at him, startled, and then laughs. The hour has drawn late, the rustle of the upstairs libraries settling to the creak of the raven cages, and her laughter is muted in the evening.

She draws closer to the fresco, still smiling.

“That transparent, am I?”

“No. Only, I have seen that look enough to know what it foretells.”

That he has surprises him. He has come to know her well, in the weeks that have passed since their exodus through the mountains.

She hums an acknowledgement, a smile playing on her lips. “Perhaps I should work on that.”

“Perhaps.” He allows his returning smile, just briefly. “What was it that you wanted to ask?”

Her expression sobers in turn as she considers the painting again. Reaches out, gently, to trace his brushstrokes in the plaster.

“I was wondering,” she begins, following the edge of the shadow that represents the Magister. “Why you paint the history of the Inquisition, but never paint us within it.”

He follows her hand, examining his fresco. A stylistic inquiry, then. “And why, then, I choose to paint our enemy?”

“Yes, that too,” she says, with a laugh. “But not only that.” She draws her hand away. “I guess I wonder at the moments you’ve chosen to paint. How you define the Inquisition, in that way. You paint calamities, Solas."

He laughs this time, for that is an edged truth, but turns to consider her nonetheless, a smile playing across his lips. He’s curious. "What moments would you choose to paint?"

“I don't know.” She turns back to the fresco and her fingertips return to the chantry, drifting across the ripple of its flames. He wonders if she’s remembering the sight of it. "But I think, I think I'd start with the people. Because in the end, the only reason we’re still here is because of them, because they haven't given up despite all of the disasters. That’s worth remembering too, is it not?"

He tilts his head, watching her trace his fresco. "And why do the people fight? For themselves, or for their herald?”

Her hand falls away and she frowns, turning towards him. "They fight for a cause bigger than themselves, for the good of Thedas. Isn’t that what matters?"

"Yes, but what motivates them matters too, nonetheless. And what drives them is faith, is it not?” He looks at her another moment before glancing back to the fresco, the solid lines and the chipped edges of its border, ruffled from where it dried. “I only broach the subject, because what you see as a history of the Inquisition, is in fact not."

His words take her by surprise. She blinks, turning back to the four completed panels. "It's not?”

He smiles. "No. They tell the story of the Inquisitor."

A sound escapes her, surprised and incredulous, a scoff. "Me?" And then after a beat, the inevitable: "why?”

“I'm just the one unlucky enough to have walked into the wrong room at the wrong time, Solas,” she tells him, bemusedly. “I accepted the mantle of Inquisitor, but I’m a figurehead, nothing more. You know that. I don’t need – a painting."

Despite her flippancy she has turned to face him, her fingers twitching her discomfort and he smiles, a little sadly.

"Yes, I do know that,” he concedes. “Nonetheless, it is that faith, and the figure it is centred around, that is the heart of this Inquisition, as it now stands. For better - or for worse.”

He turns back to the fresco and looks into the face of the Magister, the caricature, a mistake sprawled grey and purple across plaster canvas.

“This is not _your_ story. Inquisitor. It is the story of the hero you will be remembered as, and through you, the organisation that you stand for.” He feels her gaze on him, feels her frown, but this is simple truth. “The two are inextricable. As its most potent symbol, the Inquisitor stands for it all - without their hero, your people’s strength would be for naught and they act because they have something to act for.”

She is indeed frowning when he turns to face her again, fingertips tapping on her thighs. “I disagree. Cassandra, Leliana, Cullen – they were all here before me, had been building the Inquisition before I entered it. To reduce the Inquisition to me alone is - disingenuous.”

He tilts his head again. “From what you’ve told me of Redcliffe, they were unable to keep the organisation from falling apart after you were lost and the world shattered as a result. Did it not?” He watches the pain and remembered horror crowd her features at the memory, and feels sorry for it. The truth of the matter remains, though. “Before, perhaps, that might’ve been true. But now, your fate, and the fate of your organisation are inextricably intertwined. You will be remembered together, as much as history remembers anyone at all.”

She looks at the wall again, expression unreadable. Her mouth is firm, thinned in the torchlight. She doesn’t like his answer. Sadly, her opinion will be irrelevant.

“But come,” he says, after another moment of silence has passed. He draws away from the frescos, the litany of his mistakes, and steps towards her. “Let us talk of something else.”

“You still haven’t fully answered my question,” she says, after she drags her gaze away. She follows him to his desk. Leans against the edge of it, kicking her legs before her and there is a mischief in her smile, now.

He raises a brow. “Oh?”

“Mhm,” she hums, and tilts her head. He has the distinct feeling he’s being mocked. “If it’s my story, then why haven’t you painted me?”

He laughs. “Have I not just explained that?”

“Not quite, no.”

“Would you like me to paint you?”

She grins, quick and sure and utterly satisfied. “Yes.”

He looks at her. The question was an obfuscation, a distraction; he has not painted her because to define her is beyond him, but he cannot deny the attraction of the idea. He has sketches slipped between his driest tomes that remember the slope of an ear, the slant of cocky smile.

“Alright,” he finds himself saying, his pulse fluttering in his throat. And then he offers her his hand.

“What, now?” she laughs, but she follows all the same.

“Why not?”

He is being impulsive.

He finds he doesn’t give a damn.

So she follows him as he leads her to the high backed chair and coaxes her to sit and he takes the stool, pulling himself to the desk and clearing a space to work, piling notes and tomes haphazardly away from him.

She watches, delight creeping into her smile.

“You’re serious.”

He rummages through one of the desk drawers for his supplies, unearthing the charcoal and a clean piece of parchment and shifts until he can capture her in the candlelight, the veilfire torch drawing the blue from the long locks of her black hair.

“Should I not be?”

“No-” she laughs again and then shuffles back in the seat, making herself comfortable. “No, I guess you shouldn’t.”

She meets his eye again, directly, deliberately and he falls into the motion of line and paper, chasing after the curve of her smile.

**Author's Note:**

> So this deviated a little. Prompt from the wonderful karininini on tumblr for our art/fic exchange (her art is BEAUTIFUL check her [out](http://karininini.tumblr.com/))
> 
> Also, the title is from: [Inches and Falling - The Format](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy8rn0bUesk)


End file.
